


Boudoir Photography

by AnnetheCatDetective



Series: Masculinity verse [9]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: F/M, M/M, Trans Characters, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-29 18:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something of an AU crossover. Vic gets an anniversary present for his Spy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boudoir Photography

He feels awkward about the whole thing. What was he even thinking, doing boudoir photography? That was something… something other people did, maybe, not him. Younger people. Prettier people.

He reminds himself he’s doing this for his Spook, the man who’s loved him and supported him and raised a child with him… well, there’s raising left to go, for that matter. Another thing that makes him feel awkward, the vague idea that parents ought to be somehow sexless, even though now that he is one, he knows it’s far from the truth in a way that even the ‘how did you think you got here’ question could never really hammer home. Still, there’s a world of difference between afternoon quickies on school days and planning romantic evenings to coincide with sleepovers, and getting naked pictures done for a gift.

The studio’s run out of a house— though, ‘house’ seems an insufficient descriptor for the place, huge as it is just from the front. Genevieve answers when he knocks, ushering him in with a broad, delighted smile. He’s never really known any good way of saying she reminds him of his husband— he doesn’t think there is a good way, and he imagines they’d both be offended by any comparison he could voice.

Of course, once she introduces him to her own, he decides that point is moot. The man is practically his double, and they shake hands awkwardly.

"You must be Vic. Ginny said you looked a bit like me, but…"

"Yeah." He shrugs. He almost wants to ask if the man ever worked for RED— or BLU— but he bites his tongue. It would be an odd thing to bring up, if he hadn’t. He’d just never met another sniper for either company that didn’t fit the same basic mold. The two BLU Snipers he’d faced during his time on RED could have been twins, to the point where he didn’t notice for a week when the first had been replaced. They were even both lefties! He’d met a couple of RED’s other snipers as well, just as they were getting their assignments to different bases, and… for all he knew, this man had been one of them, maybe.

Genevieve leads him over to a table in a sunny nook of the house, where there’s cream and sugar and a plate of biscuits laid out, as well as a large photo album.

"Coffee is almost ready. The portfolio is there." She nods. "He’ll be setting up the studio, but we can go in whenever you like. Either one of us can take the pictures."

He flips through it. The first few pages aren’t boudoir pictures at all, though there’s one of Genevieve in a white dress, between pictures of animals and the garden. Then he hits them, in the second half of the album.

Mostly it’s her. Lounging in the shade on an outdoor chaise, wearing a green gown with a slit going all the way up the side, and nose to nose with the ball python wrapped around her forearm. Another on her back on a bed, a different dress, stocking-clad legs up in the air and her hands wrapped around a revolver like she was born using it. One with a black cat in her arms, another with a tailored skirt suit and a martini, and one from behind, the back of her dress plunging to reveal broad shoulders and supple muscle and the curving white line of an old scar, as she holds a knife behind herself and looks back slyly at the camera… All perfectly tasteful, some outside the realm of what he would consider ‘boudoir’ and others firmly within it, but the portfolio at least contained no nudes. He assumed they existed, but he was relieved not to see them. Had the idea it would be awkward, having coffee with the little group and having the thought in the back of his mind that he’d seen naked pictures of one of the members.

"He calls it his Deadly Woman series." She laughs, pouring him a cup of coffee.

"Very Mata Hari."

"Thank you." She smiles and smooths her skirt, perching on a chair.

After the first cup of coffee, he feels fortified enough to see the studio. There’s a large bed there, though not the one in her picture. There’s a velvet lounge in one corner, and a big armchair in another, and various other bits of furniture, and a long shelving unit of props and things, sparsely laid out. A photography studio just starting out— when they’d first talked, Genevieve had said, it was more a private passion turning into a second career.

There’s another picture hanging up in the studio, very much in the style of a classic pinup, of her in a bathing suit, kneeling on the bed and grinning at the camera, and playfully holding a sniper rifle, and that’s all the answer he needs when it comes to her husband’s past. In a way it puts him at ease, knowing he has some common ground with both of them. He’s not surprised the weapons aren’t on the props shelf. He’s not surprised to see the black cat, either, claiming a spot beneath a big window.

"Do you want to look at the props?" She offers.

"Nah… don’t think I’m much of a ‘prop’ type… Just want it to be me."

"All right." Genevieve smiles. "Is there anything you want to hide?"

It feels good to be able to say no. It had been a long road, and not the easiest one— he can remember all the stops along it where he would have given anything to hide his body, from himself most of all. Now… Now he just wants to show it off, just in this little capacity. Wants something he can give the man he loves so that in the dead of winter— hell, half of every autumn and sometimes in the spring when there’s a chill morning— when he can barely stand to strip naked long enough to take a hot shower, there’s something to look at.

There are pictures taken while he undresses, of his shirt and undershirt coming off, of his belt being undone… Genevieve goes to refill his coffee the moment he hesitates over his fly, which he’s grateful for. She puts him at ease in a way, but he’s not keen on getting naked in front of her. When she’s not in the room, he tries to think of it the same way he’d think of a locker room, and it’s easier than he’d first thought. Almost like being alone…

She knocks, coming back in, giving him time to pull a pillow into his lap, and the camera catches that, the shy way he turns to the side as he covers himself. The camera catches him drinking coffee, more relaxed, nude but covered. It catches him holding his shirt before putting it back on, catches him stretching to pop out a kink in his back.

When he gets the prints, passed to him in a plain envelope at the next meeting, he’s pleased with them. It’s an intimate portrait, but it doesn’t feel tarted up, it feels like him, and he slips them into the photo album he’s bought for the occasion.

Just in time, as the man he’s done it all for returns from dropping Laurel off at Anamarie’s for the night.

"Happy anniversary." He sighs, dropping his keys and his coat off at the door in from the garage, moving into Vic’s arms for a kiss.

"Happy anniversary, Spook… think I promised you something special, yeah?"


End file.
